Everyone knows that workers who badmouth their bosses on Facebook or otherwise act out via social media can be a headache for human-resources departments. But in a growing number of cases, the actual transgression is not the problem so much as dealing with colleagues anxious to turn the bad actor in.

That’s the word from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), which in a recent story posted on SHRM Online outlined the problem of “Facebook snitches,” workers who seek out bosses — sometimes armed with printouts — to report instances of co-workers making inappropriate comments about their jobs online.

When the issue was raised at a SHRM conference on employment law in March, according to SHRM, half of the human-resources professionals in attendance raised their hands when asked whether social-media stool pigeons were a growing phenomenon.